AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

'Feeds Round!': Stable-time in the Wagon-lines, France

Illustration © The Estate of John David Roberts. Catalogue information based on the catalogue raisonné by David Cleall. For this and full details of the exhibitions cited, see the links below. Any auction prices quoted may not include all fees and taxes, such as VAT and Artist's Resale Right charges.

'Feeds Round!': Stable-time in the Wagon-lines, France, 1922
Oil on canvas, 50.8 cm x 61 cm

In a letter to Ernest Blaikley, Keeper of Art, at the Imperial War Museum, on 18 August 1924, WR wrote, 'I think in a letter to Mr Muirhead Bone I gave the title of my picture as Stable-time at the Wagon Lines, but I think I will make a little addition to this and have it, "Feeds round! Stable time at the Wagon Lines, France." Feeds Round! is the order given by the Sergeant Major for the men to cease grooming. The nose-bags are then brought and placed just behind each horse where the men wait in readiness for the final order, "Feed!"' (IWM, 277/6).
PROVENANCE: WR > Muirhead Bone (Aug. 1924, £38 18s. 11d. – this was the amount then remaining in the Muirhead Bone Fund, set up by Bone to purchase works for the Imperial War Museum with his share of the proceeds of the sale of reproductions of his own works, and 'Feeds Round!' was the last work purchased through the Fund) > Imperial War Museum (4218, Aug. 1924)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Arts Council 1965, Tate Gallery 1965, Edinburgh 1974, Newcastle 2004